


Spectre

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandoned & Haunted Space Ship, Accidental Stimulation, Bed sharing LEADS TO SEX, IN SPACE!, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:26:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23717413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The ship is pretty cool, all things considered.Cool, but a little creepy.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 23
Kudos: 244
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), is this thing (an)on?





	Spectre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aohatsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/gifts).



The ship is pretty cool, all things considered. It’s a couple times larger than one of the quinjets; a mess of interconnected tubes and modules that Peter has only just started to really know his way around after a couple of hours. 

Cool, but a little creepy. 

Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to agree with Peter on either point.

“It’s a piece of junk,” he says dismissively, wrenching a piece of pipe out of the wall. 

“Well yeah, it’s kinda beat up, but it’s still a _spaceship_.”

“Barely,” Mr. Stark mutters.

They’re both in the far rear compartment, still in their full suits until Mr. Stark can get the life support stuff back up and running. Peter would be way more freaked out right now if not for the way Mr. Stark seems to be only vaguely irritated by the situation.

Part of the irritation is because the artificial gravity is shot, probably. Mr. Stark is dealing with it by magnetizing the soles of his boots so he can stick to the ship’s structure as he works on the life support. Peter has things a little easier, anchoring himself with a sticky hand or a foot when he isn’t busy floating around for the fun of it. Not that he’s been messing around - Mr. Stark tasked him with familiarizing himself with the engine systems, which seem to be functioning well enough for now. 

“I wonder who built this thing,” Peter says.

“Someone with only a middling understanding of the basic principles of engineering.”

Peter rolls his eyes, secure in the knowledge that his pupils can’t be seen through his mask. “They can’t be that bad. I mean, they made it to space.”

“Yes, they did. But you notice how the ship is conspicuously empty? I’d be slightly more impressed if there was any evidence they made it _back_ from space.”

The ship creaks and groans around them. 

Creepy.

\- # -

Mr. Stark gets the life support stuff sorted out, which seems to put him in a better mood. He’s still muttering disparaging comments about systems efficiency and design fallacies, but Peter can see for himself that the O2 and pressure levels are holding steady, so it really can’t be that bad. 

And with that done, they can both finally deactivate their suits. 

Finally free to appreciate the novelty of zero gravity in all its sensory glory, Peter lets himself unstick from what he’s been thinking of as the floor, allowing himself to drift upwards and backwards. 

Mr. Stark grabs him by the knee, arresting his backwards trajectory.

“We should do an inventory,” he says.

Peter swallows. 

“Right.”

It’s not that he’s not scared; he’s a couple million or so light-years from Earth right now, on a clunker of a spaceship that neither he nor Mr. Stark really knows much about. Of course he’s scared. But right now he’s very pointedly ignoring that fear. Peter knows that if he lets himself be afraid then he won’t be able to do anything else, and they’ve got a lot of stuff to figure out before he can freak out like that.

He levers himself towards the midsection compartment to take stock. 

There’s a water filtration and dispenser built into one wall, which looks to be linked up with the HVAC via a pretty basic recovery system. Peter makes a face. Okay, he’s glad to have water. He’s very glad, because it means he and Mr. Stark won’t go nuts and die from dehydration out here. 

But he’s also possibly drinking recovered alien sweat water.

Ned would think this was awesome, Peter tells himself and takes a reluctant sip. To his relief, it tastes like perfectly normal, clean water.

They have food, too. Or something that looks and tastes like food, anyway, stored in little packets that heat up all on their own when ripped open. Peter slurps something that’s like a thicker version of tom kha gai straight out of the packet while Mr. Stark messes around with the navigational display one compartment over.

Mr. Stark shoots him a funny look at the sound, then waves at him to come over.

“Sit,” Mr. Stark tells him, pointing at the captain’s chair next to him. Peter maneuvers himself into the seat, slipping his arms through the harness. Peter's not sure why Mr. Stark needs him in the chair, but apparently it must make some kind of difference because a whole new section of the screen lights up.

“How far are we?” Peter asks, almost wishing he didn’t have to know the answer.

“At current speed, two and a half weeks, give or take.”

Two and a half weeks. Okay. That was basically like a long vacation.

Given that they’d been sucked through a wormhole and shot halfway across the known universe, it could’ve been decades. It could’ve been millennia.

“That’s not too bad, right?” Peter asks.

“Could be worse. I think we can shave a few days off f I juice up the engines a bit.”

See? No freaking out necessary after all, Peter tells himself.

\- # -

The ship is big. As in, it takes up a lot of physical space. That doesn’t mean it’s _spacious_.

The nodes themselves range from the size of a small closet to… well, the size of a slightly larger closet, and the little tube-like hallways in between are narrow enough that Peter can easily touch both walls with his arms stretched out.

What that means is that Peter feels like he is constantly, unintentionally drifting into Mr. Stark’s space, or in his way when he’s trying to get somewhere. They grab each other shoulders or arms or hips for leverage to squeeze past one another through the connecting tubes, and bump knuckles trying to hand each other tools as they work on upgrading the engines. 

That in itself isn’t unusual - they’ve worked together in the lab for long enough that Peter is plenty accustomed to working at a shared lab bench, and Mr. Stark has never seemed to notice or care about invading his personal space - 

Which Peter is fine with. To be clear.

But this is sort of more sustained than that. Peter’s never spent more than a couple of hours at a time working in the lab, as soon as it started to get late Mr. Stark would send him home. He’s heard of Mr. Stark’s lab binges - pretty much everyone in the world has heard about those. Peter’s even seen the immediate aftermath for himself, once or twice. But he’s never been part of one, not like they are now.

There’s no day and night, out here. Somewhere out there stars are shining as they whiz past, planets spinning on their axes, moons orbiting. It’s always day.

It’s always night.

“That’s a - ” Peter has to stop for a yawn, “seven-point-three percent improvement on top speed. ’S pretty good.”

Mr. Stark is tapping his middle finger against one of the engine struts, his eyes flicking back and forth. Peter can’t tell if he’s looking over the engine for the thousandth time or if he’s doing calculations in his head. Maybe both. Peter leans his head back against the outer wall and closes his eyes to let them rest a little. He’ll open them back up as soon as Mr. Stark comes up with whatever they need to work on next.

He wakes up to Mr. Stark shaking his shoulder.

“Wha - oh.” 

Peter wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, blinking himself back to alertness.

“I don’t mind the whole napping on the job thing, but if you’re gonna do it, do it where you’re not gonna float into me while I’m trying to recalibrate the FTL drive.”

“Sorry.”

Peter would feel a lot more sheepish about falling asleep and possibly drooling if he wasn’t also pretty sure that, despite the dark circles and uncharacteristic five o’clock shadow, the look on Mr. Stark’s face was really sort of fond.

Mr. Stark takes his hand away from Peter's shoulder to scratch at the stubble on his own jaw. “Pretty sure there’s a bed somewhere around this hunk of junk. Go get some sleep, kid.”

\- # -

The bed turns out to be more like an oversized sleeping bag that’s strapped to the walls at the top and bottom, which is good, because a regular bed wouldn't be much use in zero gravity. It looks and feels a little strange, but Peter is pretty sure he could sleep just about anywhere right now, given how tired and wrung out he is.

The covers are just snug enough around him that once he’s maneuvered himself inside, he stays there, floating along with the bedding. The motion reminds him of lying on one of those rectangular foam pool floats at free swim, rocking gently back and forth in the water. 

Peter takes a moment to be extremely thankful he doesn’t get motion sick anymore, and then he’s out like a light.

\- # -

It’s easy to tell the age of things on Earth, at least in a general sense - like the way cars from the 80s have that boxy look to them or those huge tube-style TVs from the 90s. It’s easy to tell because of the style, and because unless something was kept in mint condition, you could usually see the wear and tear.

Stuff in space was different. The ship had a boxy sort of look to it, like those old cars, but then some of the systems were pretty advanced.

Well, maybe not advanced in Mr. Stark’s view, but Peter thought mastering faster-than-light travel surely had to count for something.

But the upshot is, Peter has no idea how old the ship is. It exists in the liminal space somewhere between ‘built yesterday’ and ‘decades or centuries ago’ - for some variable definition of the word ‘yesterday.’ 

Someone could’ve slept in this very bed mere hours ago, or it could’ve been years and years since anyone had been here. 

And what happened to the people who’d built and flown this ship, anyway? Peter and Mr. Stark had searched the whole ship, there hadn’t been any sign of what had happened to them or where they’d gone. There are two exterior hatches that look like docking ports. They could’ve attached to another ship or station somewhere, or one of the ports could’ve been attached to an escape pod, and they’d jettisoned themselves when the life support had started to fail.

The ship creaks and groans around him, systems whirring and humming in the background. Peter’s not sure why he expected space to be quiet.

Well, okay no, he does know why: Alien. 

> In space, no one can hear you scream.

It’s not technically true. Peter knows that. The vacuum of space may transmit sound poorly, but it does still transmit sound.

Peter shifts, annoyed at finding himself awake at the thought. 

The HVAC must have shifted or kicked into higher gear since first climbed into bed, because it’s blowing directly on his face now. Peter scrunches away from the cool, dry air and ducks his head down into the sleeping bag.

The rattle of the vent kicks off. Peter pokes his head back out of the sleeping bag.

The vent kicks back on.

Peter shifts to the other side of the sleeping bag. He must be going a little bit nuts, because he could swear the vent’s airflow follows him.

 _The bedroom is haunted_ , Peter’s brain supplies as the first and only explanation. Whatever aliens built this thing are mad at him for eating their food and sleeping in their bed, and they’re still here right now. Watching. Peter digs the heels of his hands against his eyes. Obviously that’s ridiculous, it’s just that he’s tired, and the ship is creepy, and he’s stranded millions of lightyears from home. Of course it is.

Ships can’t be haunted, because ghosts aren’t real. 

Maybe alien ghosts work differently though.

He climbs out of the sleeping bag (the vent obligingly kicks off, affirming his hypothesis that the ghosts don’t like him sleeping in their bed) and goes in search of Mr. Stark. If there’s anyone who can make Peter not care that the ship is possibly haunted, it’s Mr. Stark.

Peter doesn’t find him back in the engine compartment though, or in the food supply one. He’s not in the little bathroom either. 

The background creak and hum and whir of the ship makes it hard to listen for clues of where he might be. Peter would expect to hear him working on something, banging around somewhere and cursing under his breath. But there’s nothing.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter calls out, his voice still croaky with sleep, the sound barely audible even to his own ears.

Maybe this is just a dumb nightmare. Peter forces himself to stop; one hand anchored to the wall, stilling his body. He squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can and then opens them. Nope, not a nightmare.

Logically speaking, there are only so many places Mr. Stark could be. 

Either he’s on the ship or he had to activate his suit to fix something on the outside. They’re still rocketing through space at insanely high speed, so Peter is pretty sure he wouldn’t have gone outside, not without tapping the breaks a bit first.

So Peter works his way backward, compartment by compartment and tube by tube. Engine room, check. Bedroom, check. Utility closet, secondary engine room, both docking bays; check, check, check, check.

Peter is not panicking. He’s not.

Except that the only thing that made him feel safe being out here - that he wasn’t all on his own, that Mr. Stark and he could watch out for each other - was gone.

He’s about to throw pride to the wind and just start yelling Mr. Stark’s name like an idiot in a horror movie when he finds Mr. Stark fast asleep in one of the pilot’s chairs. The straps are looped over his shoulders to hold him in place and his head is lolling to one side, mouth hanging open slightly.

Peter feels like an idiot.

There isn’t really anywhere else to sleep, of course, not unless he wanted to float all over the place bumping into things, or climb into the sleeping bag with Peter - which Peter wouldn’t object to at all, but clearly Mr. Stark doesn’t feel the same. That said, the chair doesn’t look particularly comfortable.

“Mr. Stark,” he whispers. Then again, louder. “”Mr. Stark?

It takes a couple tries, but Mr. Stark cracks his eyes open blearily. Peter will not in a million years ever admit this out loud, but he looks sort of adorably grumpy.

“Kid?” Mr. Stark mumbles.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Well duh, Peter thinks. Of course it’s him. That’s probably not what Mr. Stark was asking.

“Wha’s wrong?” Mr Stark says, seeming to come more awake by the second. He frowns, looking Peter up and down. “Why do you looked freaked?”

“Oh. Um, nothing.”

 _I_ _think the spaceship is haunted_. Nope. Not saying that out loud.

Peter's reply must not do all that much to convince Mr. Stark that he's okay, because Mr. Stark shrugs out of the straps and pushes himself up out of the chair, rolling his neck and shoulders to stretch and then reaching out to pull Peter in.

“Hey, c’mere,” he says. “It’s fine. I’m gonna get us home.”

Peter melts into the touch, burying his face against Mr. Stark’s neck and wrapping his arms around the man’s back. The fear and exhaustion that have been building ever since they found themselves stuck on this ship leech out of him, gradually replaced by the warmth and solidness of Mr. Stark’s body.

Peter thinks Mr. Stark must feel the same way, at least a little bit, if the way he alternately clutches and then rubs his hand up and down Peter’s back is any indication.

“How long’ve we been asleep?” Peter asks. He feels Mr. Stark move his arm up so he can look at his watch.

“Couple of hours. Probably not enough.”

Peter purses his lips. “The bed is pretty big. I mean, not regular Earth-bed big, but big for a spaceship.”

Mr. Stark’s hand pauses on his back. Peter holds his breath, waiting for a response.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Yeah. It’s pretty comfortable. More comfortable than sleeping in a chair, anyway.”

“Sold,” Mr. Stark says, letting his arms drop away. “Lead the way.”

Peter isn’t sure what exactly he’d been thinking, when he suggested it - at least partly that he didn’t want to go back to the haunted bed on the haunted spaceship to try to sleep again by himself.

And yes, the sleeping bag is larger than what one person really needs on their own, but that doesn’t mean it’s plenty large enough for two people ,full stop. Especially not two people who have never slept together before.

Peter feels his face heat up at the phrasing there.

He tries to bury the thought, shoving it to the back of his mind as he climbs into the sleeping bag next to Mr. Stark.

It’s pleasantly warm with two people inside, and the vent seems to have stopped playing games on him for the moment. Peter drifts, hyper-aware of Mr. Stark drifting along next to him, every nerve ending in his body feeling like it’s on high alert.

“Mmm, okay yeah you were right, Pete. Definitely more comfortable than the chair.”

“Told you so,” Peter mumbles.

\- # -

This time Peter wakes up slowly. 

He’s warm, and comfortable, and it takes a while to process that the reason for that is Mr. Stark is wrapped around him like a very cozy octopus. One of his arms is slung across Peter’s stomach, the other lower down around his back, hand splayed out over his hip, and Mr. Stark’s head is tucked down against Peter’s ribs. 

Peter’s own arms seem to have come free of the confines of the sleeping bag, floating up in front of him like he’s a zombie-movie extra, thanks to the zero gravity.

He feels a little bit grody, unsure of how low it’s even been since he’s had a proper shower now, and he needs to pee, but not enough to want to move. He cautiously brings one of his arms down around Mr. Stark’s back, relishing the feeling of it underneath his palm.

Mr. Stark mumbles something in his sleep in response, his breath warm against Peter’s skin through his t-shirt, his fingers twitching against Peter’s stomach and, oh - Peter feels his cock twitch in response.

No no no. This is not the time. 

There’s no way Peter can extricate himself without waking Mr. Stark up, not unless Mr. Stark’s sleeping brain decides all on its own to stop using Peter like a plushie stuffed toy, which seems unlikely. 

Peter thinks about the cold vacuum of space. About drinking alien sweat water, and haunted space ships, and that time his neighbor had walked out into the hall to get his mail wearing only his tighty whities and slippers, which had been pretty scarring to witness given all Peter's at-the-time freshly acquired supersenses.

It might have worked, too, except Mr. Stark seems determined to make things as (don’t think _hard_ ) difficult as possible for Peter. He’s stroking at Peter’s stomach now, the movement aimless and unpredictable in a way that makes it nearly impossible to filter out. 

Peter bites at his lower lip, praying that Mr. Stark might fall more deeply asleep soon and stop torturing him.

He has no such luck. Mr. Stark hums in his sleep, tucking his face more fully against Peter’s side. 

He’s going to have to say something. If Mr. Stark keeps this up, Peter is going to come in his boxers, and he figures that’s got to be even more awkward to explain than a boner would be. Right?

Maybe.

Ever so carefully, Peter reaches down into the sleeping bag, wrapping a hand around Mr. Stark’s forearm and gently prying it away from his stomach. Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to like that much. He pulls his arm away from Peter’s hand and plops it right back down, on Peter’s chest this time, thumb brushing over one of Peter’s nipples through his t-shirt.

Peter can honestly say he can’t help it; he whines.

Mr. Stark’s hand freezes.

For a long moment, neither of them say anything. Then Mr. Stark pulls away, mumbling an apology.

“I’m gonna, um - ” Peter blurts out. “Bathroom.”

\- # -

One thing that’s nice about the ship is that the bathroom facilities are mostly familiar, which isn't necessarily a given on an alien craft. Peter shuts the little folding door behind him and braces the soles of his feet and one hand against it to hold himself steady as he jerks off. It doesn’t take much to imagine Mr. Stark’s hands on him; Peter can practically still feel the lingering warmth of his body against his side.

Peter’s come floats through the air in a viscous glob. He catches it in his hand, oddly fascinated, then wipes it on a one of the disposable towels and shoves it into the trash chute. 

He squeezes out soapy water from a little packet and lathers up his hands, then wipes them dry on another towel. He does his face too, while he’s at it, and then tucks the towel up around a pipe near the HVAC vent so it can dry. He’s still kinda tired, but the thought of climbing back into the sleeping bag with Mr. Stark makes his face burn red and his throat go dry.

Instead, he opts to procrastinate by stripping out of his shirt and boxers completely, squeezing out more of the soapy water onto another towel and using it scrub himself clean. It doesn’t feel quite as good as a real shower would have, but it’s better than nothing.

Back in his t-shirt and boxers, he’s officially run out of ways to waste time, shut away in the tiny bathroom.

He heads back to the bedroom, where he finds Mr. Stark still awake.

Awake, and laughing at him.

“What?” Peter asks.

“Did you zapped on the way to the bathroom or something?”

“No?”

“Your hair. Kid, I can’t - ” Mr. Stark starts laughing again. “Here. Come here,” he says between breaths.

Peter runs a self-conscious hand through his hair as he makes his way back inside the sleeping bag. Okay, so maybe squeezing the water into his hair and then scrubbing it dry with the towel hadn’t been the best plan, but it’s not like there was a mirror in the bathroom for him to check, or a comb he could use. At least it was clean-ish, right?

Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to agree, and Peter sure as hell isn’t going to argue with him once he starts carding his fingers through Peter’s hair.

Peter lets his eyes slip closed, letting himself get lost in the feeling of it. Mr. Stark’s nails scratch lightly at his scalp, sending shivers across his skin. Tucked back into the sleeping like this, it’s almost impossible not to melt a little; between the warmth pooling in his belly and how good Mr. Stark’s hands feel on him.

“There,” Mr. Stark murmurs at some point.

“Better?” Peter asks.

“Good as we’re gonna get.” Mr. Stark tugs at a lock of Peter’s hair, then smoothes it back into place. One hand stays curls around the back of Peter’s neck.

“Thanks.”

Peter lets the gentle rocking motions of the sleeping bag lull him back to sleep. He wonders briefly why the haunted air vent hasn’t kicked back on, but before he can think about it much he’s being pulled back under. He almost misses Mr. Stark's response - 

“Anytime.”

\- # -

“We’ve got a problem,” Mr. Stark says, three days later. 

He’s sitting in one of the captain’s chairs again, a muscle around his jaw visibly twitching and his eyes scanning back and forth over the display.

“What kind of problem?” Peter asks, taking the other seat.

Mr. Stark nods up towards one of the status bars on the screen. 

“We’re slowing down, and I don’t know why.”

Peter looks up at the display. Slowing down? That didn't make any sense. Their power levels were still holding steady, and the engines were all in the clear. Peter can go check them over himself to make sure, but he’s guessing Mr. Stark has probably already done all that.

“By how much?”

“Exponentially,” Mr. Stark replies. “Give it a minute, you’ll see.”

It doesn’t even take a minute. Their velocity updates on the screen. They’re not just slowing down, they’re coming to a complete stop - or at least close enough to one that the difference is pretty much nil. Peter glances over the controls. Their flight path hasn’t changed, and the display isn't throwing them any errors or warnings. As far as he can tell from the dashboard, everything is perfectly normal.

Well, everything except that they’re slowing way the heck down for no apparent reason.

“What do we do?”

“Come back with me, I want to go over the power conduits, then we’ll look over the engines next. There’s gotta be an issue somewhere that the flight control system isn’t picking up.”

Peter slips out of his seat and vaults himself down the tube, heading for the back, Mr. Stark following right after him. They go over the power supply system and the conduits, then move on to the engine. Every minute they spend trying to figure it out is another minute closer to being stopped dead in space. And every moment they aren't traveling at top speed back towards Earth is another hour or day or week that they're stuck on this ship.

Neither of them say what Peter knows they’re both thinking: If they can’t figure out how to get the ship back up to max speed, their trip home just went from an ETA of a couple weeks to several million years.

Mr. Stark spits out a curse, stopping for a moment to run his hands through his hair. He shakes his head, then heads back up to the control room without another word.

Peter follows.

He’s mostly gotten used to the ever-present low-level creep factor on the ship these past few days, the same way he’s gotten used to Mr. Stark curling around him every night. Which is to say: only sort of, in both cases.

The air vents still sometimes act up, but only ever when Peter by himself, and sometimes the intercoms will play music for no reason - Peter is okay with that, though, because it’s a welcome break from the otherwise monotonous whirring and creaking of the ship’s regular operations. (Or what he tells himself are the ship's normal operations, and not literal ghosts in the machine.)

And sometimes the lights will only turn on halfway, which can be annoying when he and Mr. Stark are trying to work on something together after they've eaten whatever meal they're dubbing 'dinner'. Usually they can brute force the lights into working, but it’s just another one of those things that Mr. Stark uses as proof that the ship’s engineers were subpar at best, FTL tech notwithstanding.

For Peter, it’s just more evidence that the ship might be haunted.

He finds Mr. Stark leaning back in the captains chair, his hands tangled in his hair again, eyes scanning over the displays like there's some clue he must have missed. 

“The ship has an ETA in its systems,” Mr. Stark says, without looking away from the screen. “I discounted it as shitty math because it didn’t match my projections, but that ETA hasn’t updated since the last time we reworked the engines.”

“Okay,” Peter says, not sure where this is going. 

Mr. Stark looks over at him.

“We’ve got two possibilities here: this is either a system failure so catastrophic that the ship doesn’t even recognize there’s a problem - _or_ , this is part of the ship’s regular operations.”

“You’re saying that your ETA doesn’t match the ship’s because the ship knew it was going to slow down, and we didn't?”

“Maybe. It’s just a theory at this point.”

Peter likes that theory a whole lot more than his own. “You think it’s like, routine maintenance? Like defrosting a freezer or something?”

Mr. Stark snorts. “Sure, why not. Exactly like defrosting a freezer.”

With nothing else to do, they wait, both of them watching their speed continue to drop. The ship’s lights go out around them, although the HVAC is still running so Peter isn’t too worried about it, for the moment. It doesn’t take long before the ship has slowed to a crawl. 

Peter gasps when a barred spiral galaxy floats is gradually revealed through the cockpit’s viewport. Eventually it fills up almost the entire window in front of them.

“Oh _woah_.”

Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything, but when Peter glances over he seems caught up in an equal state of awe to Peter’s own, eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly at the sight.

“Well you don’t see that every day,” Mr. Stark says, after a beat.

“You think this is why the ship slowed down?”

Mr. Stark glances over at Peter. “You think the spaceship decided to slow to a crawl because it has a sense of aestheticism?”

Okay, put like that it sounds dumb. 

“No,” Peter says. “Well, maybe? We don’t why the people who built this ship did it, so like, they could’ve programmed it to stop at certain places so they could explore.”

Mr. Stark looks back towards the window.

“Could be.”

They eat dinner in the cockpit, for a lack of anything better to do and considering the cockpit definitely has the best view. At some point the ship’s intercom kicks on, playing that weird music again.

“Are you humming?” Mr. Stark asks, teasing.

“Oh, sorry. I think I’ve heard this one before, like yesterday maybe - do you remember?”

Mr. Stark’s eyebrows dip. “Heard what one before?”

“This song.”

“Peter. What song?”

Peter swallows his mouthful of food. “Uh. The music that’s playing right now. ...You don’t hear it?”

Instead of answering, Mr. Stark taps at his watch. “FRIDAY?”

“ _Low level acoustic waves detected_.”

Mr. Stark looks at Peter. “You didn’t want to maybe mention that you were hearing things?”

Peter shrugs. “I thought you heard it too. It’s just music. It’s not like it was playing all the time, just like, usually when we’re eating, or playing paper football.”

Peter bites his lip. He honestly hadn’t realized Mr. Stark couldn’t hear the music, although it did explain why he’d been so amused at finding Peter dancing around in the utility compartment the other day. Peter feels infinitely more embarrassed about that now, in retrospect.

“FRI, adjust the register for me and playback, I want to hear this,” Mr. Stark says.

The sound from the watch is a little tinny in comparison to the ship’s speaker system, but the way it overlays with the ship’s audio sounds really cool, actually.

A grin comes over Mr. Stark’s face at the sound. 

“It’s no spaceport cantina,” he says, “But it’ll do.”

\- # -

Peter’s not sure how long they spend in the cockpit, watching the galaxy drift past with the odd alien music playing in the background, but it’s easily the best night of Peter’s life. 

The conversation meanders around galaxies and stars and the limits of the known universe, sometimes pausing altogether for long stretches while they both get caught up in enjoying the view. The ship has slowed to a crawl, but it’s not a complete stop, so with every passing minute their view of the galaxy changes just slightly, revealing new vistas and configurations of stars and planets.

Peter doesn’t want the experience to end, but when he catches himself yawning for the umpteenth time he admits to himself that it might be time to pack it in for the night. He tells Mr. Stark goodnight and heads back. To his surprise, Mr. Stark follows him.

They slip into the sleeping back together, and Mr. Stark doesn’t even wait for the excuse of sleep to pull Peter close this time.

“G'night,” he whispers against the side of Peter’s head. Peter mumbles a response, already half asleep.

He wakes up hard again, like he does practically every morning now (...for some variable definition of 'morning'). He’d honestly challenge anyone not to wake up hard and wanting with Mr. Stark wrapped around them like that.

This time though, one of Mr. Stark’s hands has slipped down to cup Peter’s ass, pulling Peter’s body flush against his own. There’s no way Peter can maneuver himself out of this one without waking him, and no way Mr. Stark could possibly miss the way Peter’s erection is digging into his upper thigh.

Peter can’t see Mr. Stark’s face from his angle, but he’s working on the assumption that the man must still be asleep. Or that’s what he thinks right up until Mr. Stark’s hand squeezes his ass, the touch feeling approximately one thousand percent intentional. Mr. Stark’s hand doesn’t stop, either - massaging at the muscles of Peter’s ass, only stopping to pull Peter’s hips more firmly against him.

Peter bites his lips together and rolls his hips, unable to stop himself, and Mr. Stark grunts in response.

“Pete,” he says, softly. “This okay?”

“Okay, yeah. Very okay,” Peter answers, still somewhat in shock that this is actually happening right now.

“ _Fuck._ ”

Peter can’t help but agree with that response. Permission granted, he starts rocking against Mr. Stark’s thigh, the pressure hanging right on the edge of perfect and not-enough. 

Mr. Stark shifts, grabbing Peter by the thighs to reposition him. He pulls Peter up so they’re groin to groin, and Peter gasps when he feels Mr. Stark’s erection through their clothing. _Oh god_. A hand on his ass is one thing, but feeling hard proof that Mr. Stark is currently just as turned on as Peter was is something else entirely.

Peter snakes one hand out of the sleeping bag to brace himself against the wall, giving them both the leverage they need to rock against one another.

“Fuck, Peter, here. Come on,” Mr. Stark breathes against his ear as he tugs Peter’s boxers down.

Peter nearly comes at the feel of skin on skin, the dual sensation of Mr. Stark’s hands against his bare ass and both of their cocks caught alongside one another between their bodies.

Peter comes first with a cry, and Mr. Stark moves one of his hands up to cup the back of his head, fingers buried in his hair.

“Oh my god,” Peter says, body shivering through the aftershocks. 

Mr. Stark’s other hand hasn’t stopped roving over his skin, rucking up his shirt to smooth over his back and then back down to grab his ass. Mr. Stark is still hard against his stomach, and Peter tries to roll his hips but his own cock is still oversensitive from coming and jerks away, whining.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mutters.

“Here, how about - ” Mr. Stark starts, but instead of explaining he moves one hand up to grasp at Peter’s wrist, so they’re both anchored to the wall. He takes Peter’s other hand and pulls it down between them.

Peter gets with the program pretty quickly, after that; wrapping his fist around Mr. Stark’s cock and pulling him off, Mr. Stark’s hand enveloping his own, helping him set the pace.

Peter almost can’t believe this is happening. He’s on a spaceship. He’s on a spaceship, with Mr. Stark. He’s on a spaceship with Mr. Stark and he’s jerking Mr. Stark off with his hand.

When Mr. Stark comes, it leaves them both panting; sweat-slick and a little bit dazed.

“Guess date night worked after all,” Mr. Stark says.

It takes a minute for Peter to parse the words, but even when he does they don’t make much sense. “Huh?”

“Date night. I figured it out last night when we were in the cockpit. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the ship playing matchmaker.”

“Uhh.”

“It’s meant to be piloted by a couple, which at first I thought just meant it was built for two people to operate together. But it’s more than that. You noticed how the HVAC doesn’t like us sleeping in different rooms?”

Peter tips his head back to look up. 

“I, um, I thought the ship was haunted. Possibly.”

Mr. Stark grins down at him. “Nah, not haunted. Or it if is, it wants us to have dinner and a show, complete with mood lighting and music.”

Peter thinks back to trying to sleep that first night, and how much more comfortable and quiet the bedroom had been once Mr. Stark was there with him. And then last night, the breathtaking view of the stars, the lights turning down all on their own.

 _Date night_.

“You’re... saying we got set up by a spaceship.”

“I would say weirder things have happened, but I’m pretty sure this one is somewhere near the top of list for me.”

On a grand scale, getting bitten by a radioactive spider and turned into a superhuman probably ranked a notch higher for Peter, but like, not by very much. He tucks his face back down against Mr. Stark’s chest.

He’s fine with that.

\- # -

The ship picks up speed again not long after they finally climb out of the sleeping bag. Both of them are groggy and desperately in need of some clean up, but Peter can’t stop grinning to himself like an idiot and he’s pretty sure the ship is doing the same, in its own little way; it won’t stop playing upbeat music, the lights on various displays flashing at Peter like little celebratory fireworks each time he enters a new compartment. 

He pats at the wall. “Thanks, buddy.”

The lights flare twice, which Peter takes as a ' _You’re welcome.'_

It's almost sort of cute.

\- # -

Still a bit creepy though.


End file.
